U.S. takes aim at war crimes court, plans to close PLO office

By Mark LandlerThe New York Times

Mon., Sept. 10, 2018

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it pursued an investigation of American troops in Afghanistan, opening a harsh new attack on an old nemesis of many on the political right.

“The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said in a speech on Monday in Washington.

This Nov. 18, 2017 file photo shows the Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The U.S. has notified the Palestinians it's closing their mission in Washington, a senior official said Monday, Sept. 10, the latest in a series of American blows to the Palestinians. (Alex Brandon / The Associated Press)

“We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States,” Bolton said. “We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and, we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists in an I.C.C. investigation of Americans.”

Bolton also announced that the United States would shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington — a decision linked to the International Criminal Court, which he said was being prodded by the Palestinians to investigate Israel.

Bolton’s hostile words, in what the White House has called his first major address as national security adviser, echoed the position he took as a senior official in the George W. Bush administration, when Bolton emerged as the most virulent foe of the court, which is based in The Hague.

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The United States declined to join the court during Bush’s first term, when Bolton was an under secretary of state and later ambassador to the United Nations. After he left the Bush administration, the White House showed a little less resistance to the court’s work, even expressing support for its investigation of atrocities in Darfur.

Under U.S. President Barack Obama, the United States began helping the court in investigations and shifted to a policy of “positive engagement,” according to Harold Koh, then the State Department’s legal adviser.

Still, the United States never joined the court. And with Bolton back in power, the White House has swung back to the language of 2002 and 2003. In his speech, he made familiar arguments against the court, saying that it infringed on American sovereignty, had unchecked power, and was “ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous.”

“The largely unspoken, but always central, aim of its most vigorous supporters was to constrain the United States,” Bolton said. “The objective was not limited to targeting individual U.S. service members, but rather America’s senior political leadership, and its relentless determination to keep our country secure.”

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The announcement that the United States would close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington deepens the rift between the Trump administration and the Palestinians, which opened after Trump announced he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Trump later eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to Palestinian refugees and economic development in the West Bank and Gaza. He recently cut $25 million (U.S.) in funding for hospitals used by Palestinians in East Jerusalem.